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Robert F. Kennedy Jr's Senate Confirmation Hearing For HHS Secretary. Aired 11-11:30a ET
Aired January 29, 2025 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:59:58]
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. TRUMP NOMINEE, HHS SECRETARY: Oh and in answer to your first question, there is -- you know, there's cuter there are all kinds of exciting things that we can be doing, including cooperatives which President Trump has supported, including health savings accounts which President Trump has supported; all of these things to make people more accountable for their own health.
CASSIDY: And so would bring the cooperatives and the health savings accounts into Medicare and Medicaid?
KENNEDY: Exactly. We try to -- we try to increase those -- the use of those and to direct primary care to continue to transition to into a value-based program that is -- that is private.
Americans don't -- Americans don't -- by and large don't -- do not like the Affordable Care Act. People are on it. They don't like Medicaid. They like Medicare. And they like private insurance. We need to listen to what people -- they would prefer to be on private insurance. Most Americans if they can afford to be, will be on private insurance.
We need to figure out ways to improve care particularly for elderly, for Veterans, for the poor in this country, and Medicaid, the current model is not doing that.
I would ask you know, any of the Democrats who are chuckling just now, do you think all that money, the $900 billion that we're sending to Medicaid every year has made Americans healthy? Do we think it's working for working for anybody? Are the premiums low enough?
CRAPO: We do need to move on.
Senator Warner?
WARNER: Well, I got to tell you, for literally hundreds of thousands of Virginians, Medicaid is what prevents them from health crises on a daily, and weekly basis. And some imaginary new plan, and if there was a new plan that was to be the basis of what Trump was going to do in repealing Obamacare, I would have thought by now we'd have seen it.
I got to tell you, (inaudible)...
KENNEDY: Senator, can I reply to that?
WARNER: ... (inaudible) Mr. Kennedy, I got questions.
I appreciate our visit. I know you take your views seriously and I don't reflexively vote. I voted for four of President Trump's nominees. Already got a lot of grief from folks on this panel. But I got to tell you, I saw an email that you put out, Monday night, or your campaign did, and a fund-raising email, your presidential campaign celebrated that the freeze on all new regulations guidance and announcements is a way to protect unelected bureaucrats from further undermining our health freedom. Then you ask your donors to help pay for your campaign debt. Did your campaign and you put out that?
KENNEDY: I don't think my campaign exists anymore, (inaudible).
WARNER: Well listen, I got to tell you this. Somebody is out there soliciting money for it. Maybe you ought to find out who is.
So the fact that you celebrate this freeze, do you think that was a good idea to put all of this on hold for 90 days, funding and any kind of further work, NIH research?
KENNEDY: (inaudible) as Chairman Crapo pointed out...
WARNER: I'm not asking for -- I love Mike Crapo. I'm asking you, you're up for a very, very, important position.
KENNEDY: As he pointed out Senator, the...
WARNER: All right. (inaudible)...
KENNEDY: ... the proposals that were closed, were not closed as a result of the Trump...
WARNER: Let me...
KENNEDY: ... administration...
WARNER: ... just tell you. I'd like you...
KENNEDY: ...purposeful policy...
WARNER: ... to explain -- excuse me, sir.
I'd like you to explain to a domestic violence center in Richmond, that's saying because this freeze they may have to close down. Where are those battered women to go? Or a rural nonprofit I've got in the Shenandoah Valley saying that freeze is going to potentially shut down their ability to operate.
So, I don't, I guess if you deny or don't know what your campaign's sending out, you don't know if you raise a lot of money Monday night with (ph) the union (ph).
KENNEDY: I'm saying that the Trump administration... WARNER: You don't know -- You don't know if you raised a lot of money.
KENNEDY: The Trump administration has made clear and it does not want to freeze benefits for any Americans under Medicaid or Medicare. And I do not want to dismantle Medicaid.
WARNER: There are -- The freeze is affecting beyond Medicare and Social Security. I would hope you would have known that to be able to answer some of this. Now, you've said publicly you want to immediately get rid of 600 NIH workers on job one -- on day one. When we had our meeting, you said you'd actually like to get rid of 2,200 people from HHS. Which offices are you going to start cutting and riffing (ph) these 2,200 workers from?
KENNEDY: Senator, there's 200 political appointees that are changed during every administration.
WARNER: So, if you got rid of those 200 political appointees, you're not going to replace them with your political appointees?
KENNEDY: Well, President Biden this year changed 3,000 employees at HHS. 3,750 at NIH.
WARNER: So, your 2,200, what departments are you going to pick them from?
[11:04:59]
KENNEDY: Well, the same as President Biden did when he changed 3,000 out across all the departments.
WARNER: I'm down to a minute, minute 30. The Chairman's been generous with colleagues on both sides. I may have to go a couple minutes over. But let me just say so let's just answer this would be, I hope since you're asking to become the top healthcare official in the United States in terms of (ph) HHS, huge ramifications. And part of this job is to be the senior advisor of the President on health issues.
So, when we're looking at this purge and we're looking at laying off workers, when we're looking at potentially the President's illegal offer to try to buy out federal employees, which I would say to any federal employees, think twice. Has this individual in his business world ever fulfilled his contracts or obligations to any workers in the past? But if you are in this position, will you pledge that you will not fire federal employees who work on food safety, work on trying to preventing things like Salmonella?
KENNEDY: Senator, there are 91,000 employees at HHS...
WARNER: So, I take that as a -- I take -- That's a simple yes. I'm going to take that as a no.
KENNEDY: I can run that agency without...
WARNER: I take that as a no. You actually, we talked about protecting Americans from cyber criminals, something we need to do a lot more on. Will you commit not to fire anyone in the health arena, who currently works on protecting Americans from cyber attacks in their healthcare files?
KENNEDY: I will. I will commit to not firing anybody who's doing their job.
WARNER: Based on your opinion, based upon your opinion or your political agenda or Mr. Trump's political agenda?
KENNEDY: Based upon my opinion.
WARNER: So, I guess that means a lot of the folks who've had any type of views on vaccines will be out of work. Will you freeze grant funding for community health centers? Will you freeze federal funds for community health centers? The way the current administration's done?
KENNEDY: The President -- The White House has made clear, and no funds are going to be denied to any American for benefits in any program.
WARNER: Listen, if -- do you know what happens at community health centers? Those are direct...
KENNEDY: Are you talking about the Indian health centers?
WARNER: No, I'm talking about community health centers that are across the country.
KENNEDY: I understand that. I mean, I strongly support...
WARNER: So, you're going to excuse Indian health centers, which is good, but others are not? They're going to get their funds frozen?
KENNEDY: I strongly support community health centers, as does the President...
WARNER: So, does that mean you're not going to freeze the funding that is currently frozen?
KENNEDY: The White House has made it clear that none of that funding is supposed to be frozen.
WARNER: Sir, the direct payments are different than how the government operates. We fund the federal government down to community health centers. As a former governor, there's lots and lots of state programs that are related to healthcare that come from the federal government. They come down to the state, then it goes to local programs. All of those don't directly pay out a dollar at a time, but they come from federal funding.
They are all, you know, even though they keep changing the guidance on a minute by minute basis based upon 9:45 or 10:30 or 10:45, whatever time it is today, those funds are still frozen. Sir, I just honestly, I want to give you a fair shot, but I don't feel like -- I don't feel like you approach this job with the knowledge and candidly your willingness not to commit, try to recommend to the President to make sure these funds are unfrozen and that people's lives are at stake is a very disappointing answer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CRAPO: Senator Lankford.
LANKFORD: Chairman, thank you. Mr. Kennedy, it's good to see you again. We had some great visits in my office. We've done some follow up calls to be able to go through. You and I have talked about a hundred different issues and backgrounds and things. You've been able to address a lot of them today and just different questions to be able to clear up social media rumors and the things that are out there on. So, I do appreciate that.
We've talked about pharmacy benefit managers, we've talked about the nursing home rule the Biden administration put down. We talked about your views on agriculture and commercial and row crop agriculture. We've talked about food issues, and you made it very, very clear you're not going to tell Americans what to eat, but you do want Americans to know what they're eating. And I think that's a pretty fair perspective on that. I do want to talk to you about some areas that you and I have talked about as well. We have some disagreements, you and I, on the issue of life, and when life begins on that, you've been very outspoken on that. And we've had some good opportunities to be able to talk about that.
Title X is specifically in the HHS area. This has been an area that has been interpreted for a long time. And President Trump in the first administration interpreted that rule to say that his administration will prohibit the performance, referral for a promotion of abortion as a part of the Title X program. He made that very clear in the first administration.
Obviously, that's his decision to make again on that, on how he wants to handle that. And he's made a lot of public statements on that. The Biden administration not only reversed that, not only rescinded that rule, but they went one step the other direction.
[11:10:04]
In my state in Oklahoma, as you and I have talked about, the Biden administration cut off funding to the state of Oklahoma for AIDS testing, for breast cancer screening, and for other areas of poverty healthcare because my state didn't promote abortion. It wouldn't provide if my state wouldn't promote abortion in the states.
We got cut off for federal funds for AIDS testing and for other things. My simple question to you is, how are you going to handle Title X on that. I saw how President Biden handled that in the punitive measures that came on my state. For those that are in rural healthcare, how are you going to handle talking to him?
KENNEDY: I'm going to support President Trump's policies on Title X. I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy. I agree with him that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year. I agree with him that the states should control abortion. President Trump has told me that he wants to end late term abortions and he wants to protect conscious exemptions and that he wants to end federal funding for abortions here or abroad. That's Title X. I'm going to -- I serve at the pleasure of the President. I'm going to implement his policies.
LANKFORD: Thank you for that. President Biden when he came in immediately closed down the Office of Civil Rights and Conscious Protections within HHS. There's a statement that's come out recently that he's going to reopen that office again to be able to protect the civil rights of Americans. One of the things that Xavier Becerra did immediately when he came into HHS was conscience protections for medical professionals that were being compelled against their conscience to perform medical procedures that violated their conscience.
Xavier Becerra stepped in immediately to HHS would and withdrew that and said, no, the federal government will tell you what you believe about these issues. You don't have conscience protections anymore and refuse to protect those folks. Will you step in and say that health care individuals have the right of conscience again, as the federal law allows?
KENNEDY: Yes. I mean, the first thing that occurs to me when you ask that question is what patient would want somebody doing a surgery on them, you know, believes the surgery's against their conscience being forced to perform that? I don't know anybody who would want to have a doctor performing a surgery that the doctor is morally opposed to. Listen, I came from a family that was split on life and choice. I have cousins today who believe that abortion at any age is equivalent to homicide.
Now, there are other people who believe the opposite. But the good thing in my family that I really loved is that we were able to have those conversations and respect each other. And I wish that we could do that nationally. And if forcing somebody to participate in a -- in a medical procedure as a provider that they believe is murder does not make any sense to me. We need to welcome diversity in this country. We need to respect diversity, and we need to respect each other when we have different opinions and not force our opinions on other people.
LANKFORD: Yes, thank you for that. The FDA, under the Biden administration, changed the rules for the chemical abortion drug and said, you no longer need to see a physician. So, if you have an ectopic pregnancy or all kinds of -- don't even go anymore to see a physician. But they also changed an area that has been something has been very particular you've talked about a lot, and that's transparency. They changed the position and said, don't tell us if there's a side effect on this drug unless she dies. But other than that, don't tell us anymore.
Literally, don't give transparent information to the American people or to the women who take this drug anymore. We don't want that reported. My question to you is, will FDA move to be able to actually give transparency to the American people and to say this drug is no different than any other drug? We don't -- I can protect it just because it's political for some folks. People should know side effects on this drug and there should be reporting.
KENNEDY: Yes. I mean, it's against everything we believe in this country that had that patients or doctors should not be reporting adverse events. We need to know what adverse events are. We need to understand the safety of every drug, mifepristone and every other drug. And President Trump has made it clear to me that one of the things he is not taking a position yet on, mifepristone, a detailed position, but he's made it clear to me that he wants me to look at safety issues, and I'll ask NIH and FDA to do that.
[11:15:04]
LANKFORD: Thank you.
CRAPO: Senator Whitehouse.
WHITEHOUSE: Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Kennedy, I only have five minutes with you, so. And I've got a lot of experience with CMS, so you're just going to have to listen. Two things. One, if you want to move from advocacy to public responsibility, Americans are going to need to hear a clear and trustworthy recantation of what you have said on vaccinations, including a promise from you never to say vaccines aren't medically safe, when they in fact are, and making indisputably clear that you support mandatory vaccinations against diseases where that will keep people safe. You're in that hole pretty deep.
We've just had a measles case in Rhode Island, the first since 2013, and frankly, you frighten people.
Two, I want to air harms that Rhode Island has experienced from a remorseless, senseless CMS bureaucracy. CMS has, for years, maintained a reimbursement system that the bureaucracy could never explain, never justify, that persistently pays Rhode Island providers less than neighboring Massachusetts and Connecticut providers.
A differential of 23 and 26 percent in our regional health care market. The pending AHEAD program can begin to remedy this, at least for value-based care, and it must. There has to be payment parity in the region. Rhode Island's health care system is bleeding out because we aren't paid what neighboring hospitals and doctors are paid. And the one act CMS took on this, years ago, was to make it worse.
The CMS bureaucracy has also attacked one of the best accountable care organizations in the country. Rhode Island's Integra family doctors tried to throw them off the shared savings program because they said, Integra, years ago, briefly, fell 137 patients short of the 5,000 patients that ACOs need.
CMS wouldn't listen until a court found that to be unjustified, likely illegal, irreparable harm to this high-performing ACO and its patients, and contrary to the public interest. That must stop.
Last, CMS has refused to approve waivers granted elsewhere for Rhode Island from rules that are stupid for Medicare patients who are nearing the end of their days.
Here's what families see. Granny is home dying. She needs to transfer to a nursing home. And Medicare insists on putting her three days and two nights in a hospital. Expensive, frightening to granny and the family and stupid. Granny's home dying and can't get palliative and curative care together. Inhumane and stupid. Granny's home dying and can't get home care if she can still get out into the yard or be driven to see the shore, to see Narragansett Beach, say, one more time to recall childhood memories before she dies, inhumane and stupid.
Granny's home dying and the family's exhausted. And the respite care benefit is not to send a nurse or a caregiver but to stuff granny in an ambulance and haul her off to a hospital. Some respite. It's all expensive, frightening, inhumane and stupid.
But the insensate CMS bureaucracy takes a court order to be awakened to the harm they cause. I have had enough. CMS should let Rhode Island try humane end-of-life care through CMMI.
[11:20:02]
Let's see if it works at a state. I bet it will save money. Serve families better at a very, very delicate time and perhaps even make a model for better healthcare everywhere.
I've said a lot, my time is out. You're welcome to respond in writing. I ask unanimous consent that the order declaring CMS's actions to constitute irreparable and like illegal harm be put into the record.
CRAPO: Without objection.
KENNEDY: Let me just respond very briefly, Senator Whitehouse. I'm an implacable enemy of tyrannical, insensate bureaucracies and stupid rules. And I will work with you make CMS responsive to the needs of Rhode Island and to remedy those disparities that you talk about.
I am familiar with the Integra health plan and it is a template for what we ought to be doing. It's a value-based plan. And I look forward to you to making sure that we create pilot programs like this. I can see that reproduced around the country.
WHITEHOUSE: Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman -- unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, one of the things I've learned in my tenure in the Senate is that a nominee saying that they're willing to work with me amounts to exactly zero. We need to get this fixed. Thank you.
CRAPO: Well, I guess at that point then we will move on to Senator Daines.
DAINES: Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. Kennedy, I'm glad to see you here this morning. I listened to your opening remarks. And you mentioned you want to make HHS the gold standard of science.
I have found my engagements with you both behind closed doors in my office, as well as listen to you publicly to be very thoughtful and science-based. I applaud that. I thank you for that.
And I realize this will likely be a very partisan vote on this committee and on the Senate floor, but let the record state there are three medical doctors on this side of the dais. I'm a chemical engineer. We believe in science. I'm thankful that you do too, and you made that comment in your opening remarks.
I want to talk about agriculture for a moment. We talked about our common love for Montana. You've been to Montana many times. It's a wonderful state. A lot of folks have discovered it. They watch the show "Yellowstone" and people are coming and moving into our state, but it's an amazing place.
But as you know, agriculture is our top economic driver in Montana. We produce some of the highest quality crops, the best livestock in the country and the world. Our farmers and our ranchers are truly some of the most effective environmental stewards in ensuring we have a safe food supply chain in the world.
I share your view that protecting the integrity and safety of our food supply is of utmost importance. I appreciate the research happening in places like Montana State University to help farmers produce resilient, healthy, and safe crops, as well as their agricultural practices.
You mentioned you were a 4-H kid growing up. I think our 4-H kids and our FFA kids are some of the best kids in America.
My question for you, Mr. Kennedy, is if confirmed, as I'm listening to my farmers and ranchers talk about the future, will you commit to working collaboratively with partners at USDA, at the relevant federal agencies, as well as our Montana farmers and ranchers before implementing any policy that might affect or impact food supply?
KENNEDY: Absolutely we'll make that commitment. I have, as I shared with you, a personal commitment and a long career working with farmers. I want to make sure I understand the very, very narrow margins, the slim margins that American farmers and ranchers are dealing with.
And I don't want, under my watch, as a single farmer, to have to leave his farm for economic reasons or for regulatory or bureaucratic reasons while I serve, if I'm privileged to serve, to be confirmed as HHS Secretary.
Even more important, President Trump has a very, very strong commitment to farmers. President Trump was -- is probably historically and modern history, the best farm president in our history.
Our income spiked for the first time in decades under his last administration. He got solid support from farmers across the country. Farm country is Trump country.
[11:25:00]
Farmers across the country supported him during this election.
He specifically instructed me that he wants farmers involved in every policy and that he wants me to work with Brooke Rollins at USDA. Make sure that we preserve American farmers that all of our policies support them.
DAINES: Mr. Kennedy, thank you. And if confirmed, I look forward to having you and Brooke Rollins out to Montana to spend some time with our farmers.
KENNEDY: You have my commitment to come there anytime, particularly during ski season or hunting season.
DAINES: Deal. Wanna shift gears for a moment. As we discussed in the meeting we had in my office, Mifepristone was approved in 2000. The FDA has been there scrutiny and brought to court for failure to properly assess this drug as well as subsequent deregulation, Senator Lankford described, that occurred over the past 25 years.
Some of these deregulations included ending the requirement that these drugs be prescribed by a doctor, ending reporting requirements for adverse events, and allowing these pills to be obtained through the mail.
In fact, the FDA's own prescribing label mentioned that three to five percent of women taking this drug end up in the emergency room.
My question is, if confirmed as Secretary of HHS, will you commit to working with the FDA commission review these deregulatory actions that are threatening the safety of women?
KENNEDY: I'm sorry, Senator. As I said to Senator Lankford, I think it's immoral to have a policy where patients are not allowed to report adverse events and where doctors are discouraged from doing that.
President Trump has asked me to study the safety of Mifepristone. He has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it. Whatever he does, I will implement those policies. And I will work with this committee, make those policies make sense.
DAINES: Thank you, Mr. Kennedy.
CRAPO: Senator Hassan.
HASSAN: Thank you, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member Wyden, and welcome, Mr. Kennedy, and to your family as well.
I want to start with a couple of concerns I have and just briefly on Medicaid. States share in the funding of Medicaid. Millions of disabled children in this country are alive because of Medicaid. Millions of people with addiction in this country are in recovery because of the services provided to them by Medicaid. And millions of chronically ill people who until Medicaid expansion was enacted, who couldn't get healthcare and, therefore, couldn't work because they were too sick, got healthcare through Medicaid expansion, then went back to work and now they're on private insurance. So those are some facts about Medicaid that you might want to brush up on.
Now, I'm also extremely concerned about your endorsement of radical fringe conspiracies that if implemented at HHS would put American families' lives at risks. Vaccines are one of our greatest public health triumphs. And you don't need -- I'm not talking about abstract medical science.
One of the people who helped raise me was my grandfather who was a pediatrician. He practiced medicine in this country from 1921 until the mid-1980s. And I heard details about the difference those vaccines made in saving lives in the children who were under his care.
Vaccination has helped to eradicate many deadly diseases in the United States, including polio and smallpox, something we should be proud of as Americans. I am extremely concerned that as secretary, you would be able to halt critical vaccine research and to exploit parents' natural worries by advising them not to vaccinate their children. This will lead to more children getting sick, and some will even die.
Before the measles vaccine, about 500 American children died a year from measles. This is too much of a risk for our country, and there is no reason that any of us should believe that you have reversed the anti-vaccine views that you have promoted for 25 years.
For example, you have previously falsely suggested that the polio vaccine killed many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did by causing fatal cancers, while rigorous safety studies show that to be completely false.
Now, let's go to something we agree upon. I am really heartened to see that one area where we agree on is on women's reproductive freedom.
In your own words, it's not the government's place to tell people what to do with their bodies.
[11:30:01]